Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do.” » In the case of Alexander Portnoy, he was doomed to repeat his mistakes and continue to feel the guilt weighing on him at every moment from his parents, his lovers and himself. Their controlling nature made him a perpetual child, and his efforts to seize the opportunity to be the authority in every relationship left him even more frustrated and wanting to control the downward spiral he called life. At the foundation of his family was Judaism. Their identity was firmly rooted in their religion. For Alex, everything he saw when he looked in the mirror or when he looked at other children, the furniture in the houses, the way they spoke, was Jewish and not Jewish. His facial features and his name became sources of resentment and things he desperately wanted to change. The thought of being Alton C. Peterson and having a smaller nose consumed him. The pressure his parents put on him to go to the temple and define himself as Jewish! Jewish! Jewish! Jew!, “sucking and sucking the sour grapes of a religion,” drove him crazy. Frustrated with dwelling on the past and being a perfect Jew, Alex insisted, “I happen to be a human being too!” » Despite the fact that he wanted to escape the prison of guilt in which the Jews locked themselves, he was continually confused by everything that was goyish. He was raised Jewish and that's all he knows, but the power of religion and his inability to reconcile that power made it one of the most dominant forces in his life, alongside his Jewish mother. Childhood, for Alexander Portnoy, was a tumultuous time. He was intelligent beyond his years, which was not only a source of pride for his family, but also an opportunity for his mother to brag about him. The love he received from... middle of paper ... not having to face the real world convinced him that his overbearing mother was to blame for all his frustrations and failed relationships. He was happy with the way he lived, he “lived large!” despite his mother leading the way. He was able to ignore it, but he just didn't want to. Works Cited Frank, Thomas, H. "The Interpretation of Limits: Doctors and Novelists in the Fiction of Philip Roth." The Journal of Popular Culture, vol 28. 1995. Hopkins, Holly, R., Klein, Helen, A., O'Bryant, Kathleen. “Recalled Parental Authority Style and Self-Perception in College Men and Women.” The Journal of Genetic Psychology, vol.157. 1996Laupa, Marta. “Children's reasoning about three attributes of authority: adult status, knowledge, and social position.” Developmental Psychology, Vol. 27. 1991. Roth, Philippe. Portnoy's complaint, vintage books, 1967.